Connecticut Hospitals To Use New System To Reduce Patients' Risks Of Too Much Radiation

The Connecticut Hospital Association and Bayer are teaming up to create a new statewide reporting system regarding radiation exposure on patients. (Ronald DeRosa)

Right now, doctors treating patients who go to multiple hospitals for computerized tomography — or CT scans — can't know exactly how much total radiation exposure that person is receiving. But that potentially risky situation is about to change.

The Connecticut Hospital Association and Bayer officials announced Thursday that they are teaming up to create a new statewide reporting and data system that will allow physicians to keep accurate track of how much radiation each patient is receiving from CT scans.

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Jennifer Jackson, the association's CEO, said Connecticut will be the "first state in the nation to adopt a project that will allow patients and their doctors to measure and closely manage the levels of radiation required for effective imaging and diagnosis."

"A few years ago, people started to be aware of the potential risks as opposed to the benefits from multiple scans," said Dr. Mary Cooper, the CHA's senior vice president of clinical services.

Overexposure to radiation as a result of diagnostic testing is rare, according to CHA experts, but can result in skin tissue injury, birth defects following in-utero exposure, reddening of the skin, and longer-term effects such as cancer.

Exactly how much overexposure is occurring as a result of multiple CT scans is unknown, Cooper said. "We just don't know what those risks are over time," she said.

Cooper said similar systems involving all types of diagnostic procedures using radiation have been used in Europe for several years, but this will be the first attempt to track radiation from CT scans in the U.S.

The intent of the new system is to reduce the risks to patients by keeping their radiation exposure during testing to the lowest possible amount, officials said.

Cooper used the example of a child who plays soccer or football and is brought in to hospitals by his or her parents multiple times for CT scans because of worries about concussions. The new system would allow doctors to see how many scans that child had received over a period of time, and allow a recommendation either for or against another scan based on that information.

Dennis Durmis, Bayer's head of commercial operations for its Radiology Americas section, said his company is hoping the new system "will yield noticeable results for both clinicians and patients being treated in Connecticut."

Cooper said a number of Connecticut hospitals are already using software from various companies to track radiation dosages for their patients within that particular facility. The new system will allow them to share that information with the rest of the facilities in the state.

Bayer is providing the software system to the CHA at no cost. Once operating, the system will get automatic reports on a patient's radiation dosages from CT scan machines at hospitals around Connecticut, according to Cooper.